Email fromTed Glick/Cobb-LaMarche - Jan. 6th - Groups and activism

The Cobb-LaMarche Campaign
Working to Make Every Vote Count!
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----- Forwarded message from Ted Glick -----
Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 13:03:06 -0500

Future Hope column, January 1, 2005

Happy New Year, 2005?

By Ted Glick


It's hard to even write the words, much less say

them. The staggering toll of dead, injured and devastation

wrought by the Christmas tsunami in south Asia is

heart-breaking. And this is on top of the Bush electoral

"victory," the war in Iraq, recent U.S. obstruction of

international efforts to rein in global warming, plans to

privatize/decimate Social Security and more.


It reminds me of a line from a poem I once

wrote:


"Where do we look

for strength

in times like these-

hard times,

struggling times,

fighting-seemingly-

insurmountable-odds

times?"


I had some answers in the poem:

"To one another. . .

"Spiritual traditions. . .

"Children, grandchildren, neighbor children,

friends' children, students. . .

"And some of us

just muddle along,

doing the best we can,

learning from history,

understanding

the historical truth,

the law of physics

that for every action

there is a reaction-

that oppression

breeds resistance-

that,

as Dr. King said,

'The arc

of the universe

is long,

but it bends

toward justice.'"

As I write we are seeing concrete evidence of

this "law of physics."

For the last two months, since right after the

seriously flawed Presidential election and John Kerry's

seriously problematic immediate concession speech, a

grassroots, pro-democracy movement has been growing. There

were two initiatives that gave leadership to this movement:

the citizen's hearings on voter disenfranchisement in

Columbus, Ohio on November 13th organized by the League of

Pissed Off Voters, Common Cause and the Election Protection

Coalition, and the Green Party's Cobb-LaMarche campaign

which initiated, raised money for and provided the

organizational muscle for the (seriously flawed) Ohio

recount. Without these two efforts, it is likely that the

mushrooming pro-democracy movement would have stalled at the

starting line.

Since that time a growing number of important

developments have taken place:

-the active leadership and involvement in this movement by

Representative John Conyers and Rev. Jesse Jackson;

-the very successful Progressive Dialogue III meeting in

D.C. which founded United Progressives for Democracy and

called for a Winter Democracy Campaign;

-the actions by Electors in at least five states, Vermont,

Massachusetts, Maine, California and North Carolina, who,

for the first time in history, turned the heavily scripted

and ritualized electoral college proceedings December 13th

into a forum calling for congressional investigation and

legislative action;

-the national organizing by No Stolen Elections and other

groups to put pressure on U.S. Senators to get them to join

with members of the Congressional Black Caucus on January

6th, refusing to automatically pass through the Ohio

Electoral College vote;

-the organization of demonstrations on January 6th in D.C.,

beginning with a rally at Lafayette Park in the morning,

followed by a march to Capitol Hill to link up with another

rally there;

-the Save Our Votes March from Baltimore to D.C. January 4th

to 6th organized by 51capitalmarch;

-and, last but by no means least, the announcement just

yesterday by We Do Not Concede that disenfranchised voters

from Ohio will board a bus and/or caravan, leaving from

Columbus early on the morning of January 5th and going to

Washington, D.C. to lobby Senators and join with the January

6th demonstrators.

Those who are feeling depressed and pessimistic

about the political situation should join with this

mushrooming, hopeful, grassroots-driven, pro-democracy

movement.
We should all be doing everything we can on

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week to put

heavy pressure on U.S. Senators. By Thursday they should be

feeling like they must have felt back in October of 2002

when a tidal wave of grassroots pressure led to 156 members

of Congress voting against the legislation giving Bush the

green light to invade Iraq.

The U.S. Senate needs to be hit this week with

the equivalent of a political tsunami. If it is, come

January 7th, Bush's "political capital" may have taken a

major hit, and the political terrain for advancing the

pro-democracy agenda and all other progressive issues will

have been improved, perhaps significantly.

This is no time for cynicism or despair. It's

time for action. This week, every day. And it's time for

people to make last-minute plans to get to Lafayette Park in

D.C. on the morning of the 6th. History is calling. Let's

start the new year off right.

For contact information for U.S. Senators call

the Capitol Hill information number, 202-224-3121.

For a calendar of all the events happening this

week go to:

http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2005/01/calendar-of-upcoming-
events.html.

To learn more about what happened with the Ohio

recount go to www.votecobb.org.

Ted Glick is the outgoing National Coordinator

of the Independent Progressive Politics Network

(www.ippn.org) and is very active with the Winter Democracy

Campaign. He can be reached at futurehopeTG@aol.com.

----- End forwarded message ----
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This is great info!